Manual polls possible–Comelec

Comelec office. FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines–The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has not totally rejected the idea of returning to a manual system of voting, which has become a possibility after the Supreme Court stopped a P269-million contract for the maintenance and repair of the voting machines to be used in the 2016 elections.

“The manual election remains in the realm of possibility, in the sense that everything is possible,” said Comelec spokesman James Jimenez.

“There are a lot of possible scenarios; that’s why we’re holding an emergency meeting to firm up plans A to Z,” he added.

However, Jimenez clarified that while manual voting is a possibility, the probability of the Comelec returning to it is low.

The manual system is just one of the scenarios that the poll body is preparing for in the event that the reuse of precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines would be put in jeopardy, he explained.

“The Comelec is determined not to backslide to manual. We will do everything possible, all that is legal and all that we can for manual elections not to happen,” said Jimenez.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued a temporary restraining order stopping the contract that the Comelec entered into with the Smartmatic-Total Information Management (TIM) Corp. for the diagnostics, repair and refurbishment of the 80,000 PCOS machines to be used in the 2016 elections.

According to Jimenez, one of the other alternatives available to the Comelec is to not outsource the refurbishing of the old voting machines.

“I believe that we have [the] technical competence to do it. That’s something we can include in the planning moving forward,” he said.

On the other hand, he said the conduct of a public bidding is something that the Comelec wants to avoid.

“We will just be returning to the uncertainty that we have been trying to avoid from the beginning. If we give in to those that we are not sure about, we will be taking a huge risk with the 2016 elections. Again, that might not be the most viable position for the Comelec,” said Jimenez.

The Comelec en banc had decided to forego a public bidding and directly contracted Smartmatic-TIM for the PCOS refurbishing project, believing that it had the sole capability to repair the PCOS machines.

Jimenez reiterated the Comelec’s call for the high court to immediately resolve the case questioning the PCOS refurbishing project on which the TRO was issued.

“As far as the Comelec is concerned, we will be preparing our alternatives now for all scenarios but at the same time, we will pursue the act of lifting the TRO immediately,” he said.